When it was learned that Jared Loughner had first made contact with Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords in 2007, the left had an inconvenient problem with its narrative that Sarah Palin’s map with crosshairs targeting districts somehow had a hand in setting Loughner off. Palin was a year away from the national scene and years away from that map being created.
Conversely, Country Music star Trace Adkins released a song called Fightin’ Words in 2006, a year before Loughner met Rep. Giffords. Adkins is ostensibly conservative and spent ten years in the oil business, where he worked in the oil fields and on oil rigs. Based on the lyrics of the chorus, perhaps the left should hold him responsible for Jared Loughner’s murderous rampage.
..one slip of the tongue ’bout my God Or my woman
Or this flag that I wear on my shirt
You’ll see a side of me man
That I don’t think you wanna
Cause them there’s fightin’ words
It should have been clear to the left that Loughner was adopting Adkins’ advocacy for violence when pushed too far. Obviously, Loughner lashed out because someone slandered his God, his girlfriend, and trashed the American flag. That’s also why he attacked people who had nothing to do with any of those things. In one of his videos, he accused a passerby of stealing his freedom of speech.
Adkins ends Fightin’ Words thusly:
Excuse me
First amendment?
Son, the first amendment protects you from the government
Not from me
You can say whatever you want to out there
You come within reach of me
I’ll exercise my right to give you a good ol’ country ass whoopin’
Is what I’ll do
By God
It looks like the left has unwittingly squandered its opportunity to successfully smear a conservative.
Until one looks at some inconvenient facts.
Loughner didn’t care about God. He was an atheist. As for women, he killed two of them, one female child, and attempted to kill Rep. Giffords. He also spiraled downward after his girlfriend rejected him. Perhaps he learned from Adkins how to fight back when someone desecrates the American flag then. Nope, Loughner’s favorite video shows him exercising his First Amendment right by burning one.
In 2010, Adkins recorded another song, this one titled Whoop A Man’s Ass and its chorus goes like this:
Man, I’ll be the first one here to call you crazy
If you let me catch you cussin’ out a kid or roughin’ up a lady
And God forbid that anybody mess with mine
Ya gotta whoop a man’s ass sometimes
It sounds like Loughner fits the profile of exactly the type of guy who deserves to be in a room alone with Adkins.
On Second thought, maybe Palin was an easier target.
Ben Barrack is a talk show host on KTEM 1400 in Texas and maintains a website at www.benbarrack.com